Trish dabbed at the tears that had been intermittent ever since he sat down. She exchanged a glance with her husband, who reached across the space between the recliners to cover her hand with his own. When she turned back to him her expression was soft with forgiveness.
“Please tell me you don’t really think our son’s death was your fault.”
“I was his commanding officer, and my decisions put him in harm’s way,” he insisted quietly.
“No.” She shook her head decisively. “By all accounts—the army report, the details you’ve just told us—there was nothing you could’ve done. You were ambushed. You weren’t reckless, and you didn’t take a risk.”
“The men you detached for the mission.” Jim raised an identifying finger. “Some of them died too, didn’t they?”
“Several, yes.”
“Then there’s no guarantee Troy would’ve been safe if he’d gone out with them instead of stayed back with you.”
“No, but if he’d been in a defensive formation with enough support he might’ve—”
“Excuse me, Captain, but I won’t hear any more of this.” Trish’s tone was unyielding. “Troy idolized you. Every time he called we heard about this great idea Captain Fletcher had, or that Captain Fletcher had picked him for some special task. He was even talking about taking a few online courses when he got home because Captain Fletcher said he was smart enough to get a college degree. Do you have any idea what that meant to him, after all those years of teachers telling him he’d never amount to anything?”
She inhaled sharply, and when she spoke again her voice was steadier. “I’d give anything to change the past, to get Troy home alive. But I can’t, and neither can you. So honor my son in the way he would’ve wanted—by living your life. Be the mentor and the friend he revered. Because no matter what, you changed Troy for the better. He would hate to think that no one else will get that chance.”
Ethan gritted his teeth so hard his temples throbbed. He’d been searching for redemption ever since that morning six weeks ago when he lifted his hand in farewell as Mia backed out of her driveway for the last time. All those hours of counseling he’d sat through, all those beers he’d turned down, all those prescriptions he’d refused to fill, even this penitent trip to Wright’s family, and now here it was. In a wood-paneled living room in Morgantown, West Virginia.
He met Trish’s gaze squarely. “Yes ma’am. And I believe I know exactly where to start.”
Nick sidled up to Mia’s desk and propped his hip against the edge.
“Whatever happened to that guy?”
“Huh?”
“That guy. From Fort Preston.”
“No idea what you’re talking about.” She resumed typing her half-drafted email, hoping Nick would take the hint and decide not to pursue this line of questioning in the middle of their open-plan office.
“Yes you do,” he insisted. “The officer, the blond guy with the post-traumatic tremor.”
“Captain Fletcher.”
Nick snapped in recognition. “That’s him. What happened with him?”
“I don’t know. He wasn’t evaluated as part of the project.”
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
She swiveled her chair to face him, making no attempt to conceal her exasperated sigh. “What do you mean, then?”
“Stop being deliberately obtuse. He had a hard-on for you the size of a Mark-19 grenade launcher.”
“Language, Nick,” she replied stiffly.
“So he hasn’t been in touch since?”
“No.” And that was the awful truth, but one she knew she had to be okay with. She’d received one email from him, picking it up as soon as she switched on her phone while the plane taxied to the gate in DC. She’d re-read it so many times since then it was etched in her brain, memorized word for word.
Mia,
I’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes trying to articulate what last night meant to me. I guess I can’t.
I have a lot of work to do. I don’t expect you to wait, but I hope you will.
Yours,
Ethan
It was the signoff that made her shudder even now, despite Nick’s watchful eyes and the surrounding bustle of the office. Yours. Maybe she was reading too much into it, but she saw so much significance in that single word. No one had ever wanted to belong to her before. On the contrary, most of the men she’d dated exhausted themselves clarifying that they wanted to keep things casual, still see other people, not rush to define the relationship as a relationship at all.
Ethan’s word implied commitment. A pledge. An earnest intention to come looking for her as soon as he was ready.
And if it took ten years, she would wait. She knew that to a certainty.
“You have seemed different since you got back from Fort Preston.” Her other colleague, Tina, wandered over carrying a mug of coffee.
“Different how?”
“Quieter,” Nick volunteered. “But also a little tougher.”
“Not that you were ever a pushover.” Tina raised a palm. “But lately you’re taking even less shit.”
“Like when Francis asked you to take minutes on the interdisciplinary committee meeting and you shut him down. That was intense.”
Her cheeks flushed at the memory. “Just because I’m the only woman on the committee doesn’t mean I have to be its secretary.”
Tina nodded. “And when that guy called you, the one you’d been out with a couple of times last year? You told him exactly where to go. I’ve never seen you so fierce.”
“He thought he could call me out of the blue and get laid.” She lifted a shoulder. “I couldn’t let him get away with that.”
Tina tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Come to think of it, you haven’t been out on any dates at all since you came back. Six weeks and no men.”
Mia sighed, bracing herself for one of her coworker’s long-winded lessons on how to catch and keep a man, usually complete with personal anecdotal evidence. Instead Tina took a sip from her mug, peering at her through narrowed eyes.
“Are you sure nothing happened with this army guy?”
The phone rang on her desk. She snatched it up gratefully, greeting the receptionist who handled all the visitors to the multiple labs on this floor.
“Someone here for you,” the older woman announced briskly.
“That must be my three o’clock. Send him through.” She hung up and turned back to her colleagues. “This is that kid from my high school who’s visiting colleges in DC and wants to learn about careers in psychology. And I thought I was an overachiever.”
“So the good captain is definitely out of the picture,” Nick clarified, not yet willing to be deterred.
“And you’re not seeing anyone else,” Tina added.
Mia tucked a legal pad under her arm and reached for a pen, then rose from her chair. “Do I need to buy the two of you some gossip magazines or something? Because you’re clearly desperate for a fix if you’re pestering me about—oh my God.”
The visitor hovering uncertainly in the doorway was not a bespectacled student from an expensive New York City high school. It was Ethan.
He looked like the star of an army recruitment campaign, six-plus feet of blue-eyed, blond-haired handsome in his dress uniform. He rotated his hat in his hands as he searched the rows of curious faces turned toward him. Then his gaze found hers and his face softened into a smile.
Her legal pad hit the floor, and her pen followed it down.
“Wait,” Nick said slowly. “Isn’t that—”
Mia practically sprinted across the room, grabbing Ethan’s arm and leading him down the hall before Nick could finish his question.
“In here,” she muttered, throwing open the door to an empty conference room and dragging him inside. Her mind raced at a thousand miles per second as she locked the door, flicked on the light and hastily stowed the diagram of the female reproductive system that inexplicably graced the easel at
the front of the room.
What on earth is he doing here? Is everything okay? Has the insomnia gotten worse? Or the nightmares? Or the tremor? Damn, he smells so good…
He squinted at the easel as he slung his hat on a chair. “Was that a picture of—”
“What’s going on? Why are you here?”
“I came to see you.”
“Are you all right?”
“I am. Better than I’ve been in a long time.” He shifted his weight. “I know I’ve been out of touch. I needed some time to figure things out, get my head right again. It’s not because I forgot about you. I think about you all the time. More than anything else, actually.”
Her heart seemed to have swollen to such a size that it threatened to block her throat. “You do?”
“You’re a distracting woman.” His half smile faded as quickly as it appeared. “What I mean is, I don’t know how things have changed in your life over the last six weeks. Maybe I shouldn’t even be saying this to you.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “Maybe there’s someone else now. Maybe I missed my chance.”
“Didn’t I tell you I would wait?”
“And I said you didn’t have to.”
She had to touch him then, couldn’t wait a second longer. She stepped into his tall frame, draped her arms around his waist, beamed when his hands found her elbows.
“I feel like I’ve waited a lifetime to meet you, Ethan. Six more weeks hardly makes a dent.”
“So no one else has come along to sweep you off your feet?”
“No one.”
“Not some charming, wealthy doctor who’s never shot a gun and doesn’t wake up screaming?”
She wrinkled her nose. “No, thank God. He sounds unbelievably boring.”
The playfulness dropped from his expression. “I’m not fixed, Mia. I may never be. I still have nightmares. Some nights I can’t get to sleep. My hand shook so badly just now that the receptionist asked if I was here for the Parkinson’s study.” He smiled bleakly. “But I can promise to cherish you, and never take you for granted. I can promise to respect you, and support you, and protect you however I can. And I promise to love you, for as long as you’ll let me.”
Her heart was so full now, her lungs so crowded, that she could barely draw breath to speak. “I know you will. You’re the most honorable man I’ve ever met, and I love you so much it’s terrifying.”
“Mia,” he breathed, pulling her more tightly against his chest. “I know we’ll have to contend with the distance, and I don’t get a lot of leave, but I can fly out whenever—”
She silenced him with a finger on his sensual lips. “Who knows, maybe Fort Preston needs a full-time post-combat trauma specialist? We’ll figure it out.”
“I love you.” The words were urgent, almost insistent, like he couldn’t get them out fast enough. “I’ll do whatever you need to make this work.”
“Good. Because the first thing I need is for you to kiss me.”
His grin made the harsh fluorescent light look like a fading twilight. “Roger that.”
His mouth found hers with all the tenderness, passion and bone-deep affection Mia had come to expect. She knew this was only their first turn down a long, rough road requiring untold amounts of courage, but with Ethan at her side she was confident that every step would be worth it. It was a journey toward wholeness, toward the completeness they could only find with each other. And she couldn’t wait to set off.
About the Author
Rebecca Crowley inherited her love of romance from her mom, who taught her to at least partially judge a book by the steaminess of its cover. She writes contemporary romance and romantic suspense with smart heroines and swoon-worthy heroes, and never tires of the happily-ever-after. Having pulled up her Kansas roots to live in New York City and London, Rebecca now lives in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Find her on the web at www.rebeccacrowley.net or on Twitter at @rachelmaybe.
Look for these titles by Rebecca Crowley
Now Available:
The Homefront Trilogy
Boots on the Ground
Elite Operators
Secure Target
Coming Soon:
The Homefront Trilogy
Thunder Running
It takes a strong heart to connect roots with wings.
Boots on the Ground
© 2014 Rebecca Crowley
Homefront, Book 1
With a life that started in foster care and nearly ended in the mountains of Afghanistan, Grady Reid is more than ready to hang up his sergeant’s stripes when his Army contract expires.
Small-town Meridian, Kansas, seems as good a place as any to finally put down roots. He’s dumped his savings into a ramshackle farmhouse and is on his way to trading bullets for bull breeding when an exquisitely beautiful, totally unattainable blonde turns his head faster than a pivoting cutting horse.
Dr. Laurel Hayes longs to escape the confines of stuffy, small-town life for an adrenaline-fueled, transient lifestyle delivering medical aid in unstable regions around the world. Then she meets Grady, a man with enticing eyes, a slow smile—and not an ounce of the wanderlust that tugs at her soul.
Their lives are headed in opposite directions. But as something more powerful than attraction, desire, or even lust draws them together, something’s got to give…or their hearts could break under the strain.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Boots on the Ground:
“What’s everyone having? This round’s on me,” Kenny called over the music, his wallet already in his hand.
“I’ll help you carry,” Laurel volunteered after Christina and Peter gave their drink orders. She followed Kenny’s back as he wove toward the bar, skirting around the people dancing in front of the low stage. He reached the row of taps first, but just as she saw him turn to make sure she was behind him, one of the more inebriated dancers staggered backward and hit hard against her side. As she teetered on her high heels, one ankle twisting painfully beneath her, a firm, warm hand closed on her arm and dragged her upright.
She didn’t need to look up to know whose touch it was.
“Why is it every time I go out for a drink, I end up rescuing you? I’m starting to think this is all some sort of elaborate plan.”
Grady released his hold and stepped back, transferring two of the six beer bottles he held by the neck into his free hand. She guiltily dragged her gaze up to meet his, and sighed in relief when she found amusement tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“Laurel, are you okay?” Kenny rushed to her side, concern drawing his brows together.
“I’m fine. I’ll see you guys back at the table, okay? I’m just going to catch up with my friend Grady for a few minutes.”
Kenny gave Grady a skeptical once-over, and she knew exactly what he was thinking—he’d known her for years and never heard of this friend. But he nodded, shot her a look that was a clear reminder to be careful, and made his way back to the bar.
She indicated the bottles he carried. “Thirsty?”
“Saturday night special—three for five dollars.”
“It’s packed in here.”
His smile was tight. “I’m trying to be okay with that.”
“Want to get some air?”
She was afraid he would hesitate, that he’d give her the pitying look that precedes a letting-her-down-gently statement, that he’d shift awkwardly and explain he was here with someone else. But to her thrilled surprise, he took a deep breath. “Yeah. I do.”
She trailed him away from the crowd and around a pool table, averting her gaze as they crossed near where Peter and Christina sat. He led her to a back corner, where she recognized his two friends from the bar near the highway. Chance was leaning forward and speaking earnestly, not even noticing as Grady clunked the full bottles down amid the empties. Ethan sat across from him, his face in his hands.
She didn’t have time to say hello before Grady was edging past th
em to the back door, and she had to hurry to keep up with his long strides. The door shut behind them with a slam, and then everything was quiet. They were alone.
Her stomach clenched with nerves as she realized the significance of this moment. This was her second chance—and almost certainly her last.
She pushed her lips into a bright smile.
Don’t mess this up.
The taut ache in his shoulders eased the instant they stepped into the parking lot, where row after row of pickup trucks gleamed under the pole-mounted lights. The dark, crowded, booze-fueled atmosphere made him jumpy as hell, but Ethan refused to leave, and he and Chance agreed that they weren’t comfortable leaving the captain in there on his own.
Still, he was wound so tightly that when he saw Laurel stroll in with some accountant-looking guy in a suit, he figured it was a trick of his imagination—not unlike the RPG teams and AK-47-wielding guerrillas he sometimes saw in his peripheral vision. After all, he’d thought about her a lot the last couple of weeks, always with a pang of regret and resigned disappointment. He wasn’t ready for a woman like her—he might never be. It was a hard lesson but an important one.
But then she walked right past him, and as soon as he got a whiff of that fresh, fruity perfume, he knew she was the real deal.
It hadn’t taken much time in combat for him to develop a firm belief in fate and a willingness to follow where it led. For the esteemed doctor to waltz into a down-home dive bar seemed to be fate’s version of screaming in his ear.
Even in the harsh glow of the streetlights she looked gorgeous, her hair drifting loose around her shoulders, her luscious body poured into a patterned dress that matched the blue of her eyes.
Fate. He took a step closer.
“Who’s your date?”
She frowned briefly, as if she’d already forgotten the poor guy existed. “Oh, Peter? He’s a lawyer friend of my brother’s.”
“Is he boring you?”
Alive Day: Homefront, Book 2 Page 10
